The invention described herein may be manufactured, used and licensed by or for the Government for governmental purposes without the payment to us of any royalties thereon.
This invention relates to devices for fastening together two bodies whose shape as well as the requirement for flatness of the joined surfaces do not allow the use of conventional fastening means like screws, pins and bolts. Such bodies, however, once joined, may be required to have fixity in six degrees of freedom under high operational loads yet maintain proper alignment, flatness and airtight seal of the joined surfaces. The airtightness of the seal may be achieved by the use of an appropriate gasket or O-ring. The requirement for flatness of the joined surfaces renders unusable conventional fastening means, which can protrude outside the joined surfaces. Rather, the flatness of the joint needs to be ensured by distributing the clamping load across a larger area than can be accomplished by the use of conventional fastening devices, which usually concentrate fastening loads at a single, localized area. Further, the space limitations normally occasioned by the shape of the bodies to be joined allow no room for using the tools necessary for attaching the conventional fastening devices. Therefore, a novel fastening device is needed that may be inserted parallel to the joined surfaces rather than perpendicular to them and that does not protrude externally from the joined surfaces but, at the same time, allows easy disassembly and reassembly.
A Non-Protrusive Expandable Clamping Device (hereinafter referred to as the xe2x80x9cclamping devicexe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cexpandable clamping devicexe2x80x9d), the preferred embodiment of which is shown in FIG. 1, fastens together two bodies when conventional fastening devices cannot be used because of the unique space constraints and/or the shape of the joining surfaces of bodies 50 and 52. The expandable clamping device 100, having two tenons 101 and 103 comprising housing 10, can be slid into the bodies that have corresponding mortises on their joining surfaces to accommodate the tenons. This is illustrated in FIG. 6, which shows an end-view of the clamping device in locked position. The clamping device, when placed internally to the bodies as illustrated, has no portion that protrudes externally of the bodies, while connecting the bodies in one linear plane using motion in an orthogonal plane. When the clamping process is completed, facilitated by the rotational motion of threaded bolt 16 within cavity 30 located inside housing 10, what results is a joint that is strong in all directions and a flush, airtight seal between the surfaces that ensures proper alignment of bodies 50 and 52. The expandable clamping device 100 has the added virtue of easy disassembly and reassembly.